Hacking Humans

The process of evaluating the security of a system or network by simulating an attack on it. Sometimes called "ethical hacking" or white hat hacking. The phrase started to appear in U.S. military circles in the mid 1960s as time sharing computers became more necessary for daily operations. Computer security experts from Rand Corporation began describing computer compromises as “penetrations.” By t...

Dave & Joe have a tip as some follow-up on cloning social media accounts, Dave's story is about turning the tables on hackers in the UK, Joe talks about Kaspersky's Spam and phishing report, The Catch of the Day is is from a listener, Bob, who received an email from Eddy looking for the love of a woman (but, Bob is not a woman), and later in the show, Dave's conversation with Max Heinemeyer from D...

The art of convincing a person or persons to take an action that may or may not be in their best interests. Social engineering in some form or the other has been around since the beginning of time. The biblical story of Esau and Jacob might be considered one of the earliest written social engineering stories. As applied to cybersecurity, it usually involves hackers obtaining information illegitima...

Joe's story is about the effectiveness of social media account cloning, Dave talks about toll fraud, The Catch of the Day is a Bitcoin scam with some scam baiting on the side, and later in the show, Dave's conversation with Ben Rothke from Tapad on Medium piece: A conversation with an iTunes card scammer. Links to stories: Attack of the Instagram clones A Game of Phones: Fighting Phone Phreaks in...

A physical security access control device consisting of an enclosed hallway with interlocking doors on each end where both doors can’t be open at the same time. A person presents credentials to the entry doorway. If authorized, the entry door opens and the person walks into the mantrap. The man trap exit door will not open until the entry door closes. The person presents credentials to the exit do...

Dave's story is about robocalls to a telephony honeypot, Joe talks about postcards impersonating HIPAA communications (you have one? please let Joe know), The Catch of the Day is an email that our editor, Tom, received from the FBI about his COVID-19 death,, and later in the show, Dave's conversation with Rachel Tobac from SocialProof with her insights on the Twitter hack. Links to stories: A simp...

A class of software-security-weakness-issues where independent researchers discover a software flaw before the owners of the code discover it. Zero-day, or 0-day in hacker slang, refers to the moment the race starts, on day zero, between network defenders who are trying to fix the flaw before hackers leverage it to cause damage. It is a race because on day zero, there is no known fix to the issue.

Dave's story is about a forgotten scam, Joe talks about the recent Twitter hack, The Catch of the Day is a pretty standard phishing email for you to be on the lookout for, and later in the show, Dave's conversation with Carolyn Crandall from Attivo Networks on why human-controlled ransomware, Ransomware 2.0, is so threatening to today’s remote businesses. Links to stories: Question Quiz - The Forg...

A network mapping tool that pings IP addresses looking for a response and can discover host names, open communications ports, operating system names and versions. Written and maintained by Gordon Lyon, a.k.a. Fyodor, it is a free and open source software application used by both system admins and hackers alike and has been a staple in the security community for well over two decades.

Dave shares an horrific cyberstalking story from the local area, Joe's story is about a phishing campaign impersonating voicemail alerts, The Catch of the Day is an HR front for a check floating scam, and later in the show, Dave's conversation with Johnathan Hunt of GitLab on his perspective of dealing with bad actors: ignore them. Links to stories: Anne Arundel man sentenced for ‘cyberstalking’ e...

Dave talks about a deepfake recording impersonating a CEO, Joe's story is about a new phishing campaign, The Catch of the Day is a very persistent cash app scammer, and later in the show, Dave's conversation with Bruce Esposito from One Identity on digital identities and what they could mean for privacy. Links to stories: Listen to This Deepfake Audio Impersonating a CEO in Brazen Fraud Attempt Ne...

Dave talks about gift card scams associated with YouTube live streams, Joe's story is about a scam impersonating Canadian hospital staff, The Catch of the Day is phish impersonating a small game developer going after podcasters, and later in the show, Dave's conversation with Richard Torres from Syntax on phishing attacks increasing 350% during COVID-19. Links to stories: PSN / XBOX / STEAM CODES...

We have some listener follow-up sharing dnstwister.report site, Dave has a story of consent phishing, Joe talks about calendar invite phishing, The Catch of the Day is a lazy money multiplying scam, and later in the show, Dave's conversation with Don MacLennan from Barracuda Networks on brand impersonation. Links to stories: Microsoft warns of Office 365 phishing via malicious OAuth apps Abnormal...

We have some follow-up, and this time, Joe was not right, Dave's story is about poison-selling scam, Joe about an impersonation site, The Catch of the Day claims to be notice of a United Nations payment, and later in the show, Dave's conversation with Satnam Narang from Tenable on the increase of scams on Venmo, PayPal and Cash App on giveaways due to the opportunity provided by the economic fallo...

Dave's story shows Macs are not immune, Joe talks about a dark place in his soul (aka survey scams), some listener follow-up saying Joe was right!, The Catch of the Day an advanced fee scam from the US government, and later in the show, Dave's conversation with Aviv Grafi from Votiro on a multistage attack using a zero day exploit to deliver a trojan relating to COVID-19 Stay at Home orders. Links...

Joe shares a different spin on ransom attacks, Dave has a story on phone number reuse, The Catch of the Day is a notice from British Gas (accent included), and later in the show, Dave's conversation with Stan Holland from Atlantic Bay Mortgage on their experience adapting to COVID-19. Links to stories: Extortionists threaten to destroy sites in fake ransom attacks How I Accidentally Hijacked Someo...

Dave shares a story of an attempt on his father's Verizon account, Joe has the story of an Amazon gift card phishing attempt, The Catch of the Day is a funny phishing email, and later in the show, Joe checks in with Kurtis Minder from GroupSense. They dig a little deeper into some of the topics Kurtis discussed in his previous appearance on our show.  Link to story: Multifactor Authentication Hack...

Joe talks about HROs (High Reliability Organizations), Dave has a scam on Upwork gigs, The Catch of the Day talks about giving a scammer the runaround, and later in the show our interview with Sanjay Gupta from Mitek on how cybercriminals are capitalizing on the recently-deceased and creating synthetic identities. Link to stories: The Unaddressed Gap in Cybersecurity: Human Performance People who...

Dave has a ransomware story from inside a virtual machine, Joe talks phishing with Google firebase storage URLs, some listener follow-up, The Catch of the Day comes from Joe's daughter and "Apple", and later in the show our interview with Paige Schaffer from Generali Global Assistance on the digital habits of seniors and millennials and the latest scams. Link to stories: The ransomware that attack...

Joe shares his Classic Cons Part 3, Dave has an Apple device scam story, The Catch of the Day is your assassination heads-up, and later in the show our interview with Jonna Mendez, retired CIA intelligence officer and former Chief of Disguise. Link to story: Twitter Have a Catch of the Day you'd like to share? Email it to us at hackinghumans@thecyberwire.com or hit us up on Twitter.

We'd like to thank you, our dear listeners, for sticking with us and our podcast through thick and thin, bad accents and even worse ones, with this - a collection of some of our favorite Catch of the Day segments. From Australia to Brazil, Italy to the Oval Office, they're all here.  Here's to another 100 episodes. Have a Catch of the Day you'd like to share? Email it to us at hackinghumans@thecyb...

Dave has a story on a possible Disney-styled phishing email, Joe has the skinny on a circular pyramid scheme, some listener follow-up, The Catch of the Day is a YouTube verification badge for you, and later in the show our interview with Neill Feather from SiteLock. He joins us to explain how scammers fill the gap when popular retail items are sold out. Link to story: New phishing/scam email attem...

Dave and Joe have a follow up for a listener, Joe has two stories on different levels of effort of phishing schemes, The Catch of the Day is looking for a sugar baby, and later in the show our interview with Marcus Carey, enterprise architect at ReliaQuest. He’s the author of the book Tribe of Hackers, and he wonders if we are living in a cybersecurity groundhog day. Links to stories: Anatomy of a...

Dave has the story of PR firms selling lies online, Joe has the story of a sophisticated Business Email Compromise attack, The Catch of the Day advises you to update your account information IMMEDIATELY, and later in the show our interview with Dave Baggett, CEO and Founder of INKY. This will be a discussion of fake stimulus payment phishing scam recently found by INKY. Links to stories: Disinform...

Joe takes a look at a massive sextortion spam scheme, Dave has some advice for all of us, the Catch of the Day comes from down under, and later in the show our conversation with Andrew Shikiar, Executive Director and Chief Marketing Officer at FIDO Alliance on why phishing and passwords remain such a huge security problem and options for doing away with passwords.  Links to stories: Following the...